Love Helps
by fortunaflying
Summary: Elphaba and Galinda get in a fight. Galinda throws her hand towards Elphaba in an angry gesture and Elphaba flinches due to her history with her abusive father. General hurt/comfort feels ensue. Gelphie. Established relationship. Trigger warning for abuse.


Prompt by otpprompts on tumblr: Your OTP is fighting. When the argument gets heated, person A moves their hand to make a gesture, and person B flinches and covers their face. The argument halts as person A realizes that person B was once in an abusive relationship. Person A throws their arms around person B, hugging them tightly, reminding them that they could never hurt them.

A/N: Gelphie angst, then fluff. Established relationship. Based loosely off of the above prompt by otpprompts on tumblr. **Trigger warning for mentions of abuse and abuse flashback- I put markers where the flashback begins and ends. **:)

"Would you put that book down for just a second so that I can have a proper conversation with you?" Galinda demanded, face flushed with anger and hands clenched into fists.

Elphaba didn't take her eyes off of the offending book in her hands. "Galinda, this is for school_._ Just because you don't put much effort into your education doesn't mean that everyone thinks like you. _Some_ people actually care about not failing their classes." She tried her level best to sound calm, but even she could hear the terseness in her own voice. She had to use a good deal of her self-control to not lash out at her girlfriend right then and there.

Galinda's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed with anger and disbelief as she marched toward Elphaba's bed, failing to notice how Elphaba pressed herself against the headboard of the bed ever-so-slightly. "_Miss_ Elphaba, I will have you know that I very much do care about school, perhaps not as much as you do, but I certainly don't plan on flunking out of school anytime soon!"

"Well, judging by the way you go to parties and stay out late with your darling little friends every night, one surely wouldn't think that was the case," Elphaba ground out, keeping her gaze stubbornly trained on her book, although she'd stopped pretending to read a while ago.

Galinda, planting her hands on her hips, sneered at Elphaba with a sort of cruel hollowness that she had never before been known to possess. "Oh, I see what's going on. You're jealous, aren't you? You're just jealous that I actually have friends to go out and have a good time with. Didn't anybody ever tell you that if you got your head out of your books for once in your life, you might actually make some friends?"

That was a low blow, and Galinda knew it. Elphaba truly didn't have any friends, or at least she hadn't before Galinda had come along, which was what made this particular insult sting so painfully. Galinda could tell by looking at her lover's slightly hunched back that she had struck a nerve, and she almost regretted saying it- almost. Until Elphaba had straightened up, assuming her normal rigid posture, and slammed her book shut. "As if I would ever be jealous of you and your artificial little posse of rich, shallow, conceited airheads. And I was under the impression that we were friends, but it has now become very apparent to me that we are not," she growled.

Hot tears pooled at the corners of Galinda's eyes. "We were- are- friends!" she shouted, not caring anymore who heard her. "But, Elphaba, for a friendship to work, _both_ people have to contribute. Not just one person doing everything and the other person just about ignoring their efforts!"

Elphaba scoffed. "Now you're just being ridiculous. I do not _ignore _you-"

"Yes, you do!" Galinda practically screamed, hearing her voice crack. "I'm always trying to talk to you, trying to reach out to you, because that's what friends _do_, and all you ever do is ignore me! Honestly, Elphaba, you care about those damn textbooks more than you care about me!"

Elphaba's nails dug into her palms as she clenched her hands into fists. "What do you want me to do, drop what I'm doing and clear my schedule every time you want to complain to me about some pointless, trivial little thing that upset you?" she yelled.

Galinda closed her eyes tightly, battling the onslaught of tears that threatened to spill down her rosy cheeks. "No, but the least you could do is initiate a conversation," she said through gritted teeth. At least she had managed to stop shouting. "I always have to be the one to start, asking you a question or something. It's no wonder you think I'm a pest, how could I not seem like one when you always force me to talk to you first? You never talk to me!"

Elphaba buried her hands in the folds of her dress to hide their trembling from her roommate. Her voice, like Galinda's, had become much quieter, and was now infuriatingly calm. "I do not _force _you to do anything, Miss Galinda. Furthermore, maybe I would initiate conversation with you if the subject didn't always turn to yourself. Try not being so self-centered, then I'll consider talking to you."

"_Elphaba, for Oz's sake-!_" The blonde, without thinking much of it, threw out a hand wildly in Elphaba's general direction in an angry gesture as she spoke.

A gesture- that was truthfully all Galinda had intended it to be. (She always talked with her hands- a habit that came with having a fondness for dramatic flair.)

To her surprise, as soon as her hand had made the slightest movement towards Elphaba, the taller girl had flinched violently and thrown up her arms as if to defend herself, a terrified, panicked look in her eyes.

Galinda's fury instantly gave way to confusion. She lowered her hand, all traces of irritation gone from her lovely features. The words she'd meant to say died on her lips, and she stared at her green-skinned roommate with no small amount of puzzlement. It was only then that she realized that Elphaba had been getting more and more visibly upset the closer Galinda got to her, and she remembered something that Elphaba had once told her...

***abuse flashback starts now***

"_You stupid, worthless child!" Her father's loud bellowing only served to make the eight-year-old Elphaba cry harder. The tears burned like acid, but she found that she could not stop them from coming, no matter how hard she tried._

"_Why are you crying?" he demanded, slapping her across the face. She gasped in pain, but he took no notice and continued to yell. "You shouldn't be crying. You don't deserve to cry, not when it's your own fault that your mother is dead." Each word, said with cold certainty, served as a blade that ripped clean through Elphaba's heart. He threw a hard kick to her stomach, eliciting a wail of agony from her as she doubled over, clutching her abdomen. She could hear the clicking of his shoes as he walked away from her, his firstborn, curled in a ball on the floor._

_She didn't understand. She didn't understand anything of this cruel, unforgiving world._

_She didn't understand why her mother had to die._

_She didn't understand why the doctor couldn't bring her back._

_Most of all, she didn't understand why it was her fault. All she knew was that her mother had been in a lot of pain, and her younger brother was about to be born, and her mother and father had gone into a small room together, but Elphaba wasn't allowed to go with them, Father had said…_

_And then there was screaming, and a baby crying, so she ran into the room to find her father with his head cradled in his hands, and her mother lying cold and lifeless on the bed- there was so much blood, blood everywhere, and then her father had screamed at her to get out, so she did. The doctor had come out of the room a few minutes later and told Elphaba that he was deeply sorry, but her mother was gone and she wasn't coming back._

_After they had gone home that day, Elphaba and Nessarose and her father and the baby, her father had sent Nessa to bed but told her to wait for him in her room. She had waited with many anxious questions running through her mind, for she was a curious girl and she hadn't any idea what her father wanted with her, nor why her mother was never coming back._

_That had been the first time he had hit her. She had cried out in both pain and shock, but he clamped a hand over her mouth and hissed in her ear that if she ever told anyone about this, he would kill her. _

_Her father had never before hurt her. He had reprimanded her when she did something he didn't approve of or disobeyed him, but never physically harmed her. _

_Now things were different. Elphaba learned quickly that the best way to avoid getting beaten was to avoid her father altogether. She tried to stay out of his way as much as possible._

_She knew for a fact that he would never hurt Nessa or Shell- he adored her two younger siblings, lavished them with love and gifts and affectionate comments._

_Elphaba would be forced to watch this. And every time, something inside of her broke just a little bit more._

_She lay there on the hard floor, trembling from pain and fatigue and grief and many more things that no child should have to experience from such a young age. She tried not to miss her mother too much, because she knew that she wasn't worthy of that- her father said it, and she knew that he was right._

_He was always right._

_She didn't understand._

_Why was it her fault?_

***abuse flashback is over***

Elphaba's father had been abusive.

_Abuse. _

What a horrible word.

"Elphaba?" Galinda asked softly, as not to scare her girlfriend further. She took a slow, cautious step closer to the bed. Elphaba tensed, shrinking back and away from Galinda.

Galinda stepped forward again. She did this again, and again, until she was standing at the foot of the bed. She began to make her way around the side of the bed, but Elphaba held her hands out further in a distinct plead for her to stop. "No...no, please, I'm s-sorry...don't…," she begged, sounding weaker than should have been possible for someone usually so strong and composed.

Galinda felt like a horrible person, but she knew she had to keep going. She slowed her pace until she was barely moving at all, and eased herself onto the bed next to Elphaba, whose shoulders tensed, nearly imperceptibly. "Elphaba, it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you," she said, choosing her words carefully. After a few seconds' worth of hesitation, she extended her hand, slowly and cautiously, until it was hovering just above her roommate's hand. "Can I?" she whispered.

Elphaba stared warily at her hand, then nodded once and looked away.

Gently, Galinda took Elphaba's hand in her own and began caressing it with her thumb. She longed to pull Elphaba into her arms and hug her tightly, but she knew that likely wouldn't be the wisest thing to do just now. Instead, she held back and continued to stroke Elphaba's skin lightly. She wasn't looking at Elphaba, and she knew that Elphaba wasn't looking at her either.

They had been sitting on the bed like that for no more than a minute when Galinda's grip on Elphaba's hand tightened, and she shifted so that she could look her girlfriend in the eyes.

"Elphie." Galinda's voice was serious and tender and stern and caring all at once. "I would never, _ever _hurt you. It doesn't matter what you do or how angry I am, I would _never_ hurt you."

Her blue eyes searched Elphaba's brown. "You know that, right?"

Elphaba, still avoiding looking directly at Galinda, took a shaky breath before nodding again and using her sleeve to swipe at her eyes. A tiny smile made its way onto Galinda's face as she scooted forward and slid an arm around Elphaba. Her free hand went up to delicately wipe away the tears pooling in Elphaba's eyes, ensuring that no water burned her flawless emerald skin.

Elphaba returned the embrace, long arms curling around the petite blonde and cheek settling contentedly against Galinda's soft golden hair.

They both knew that Elphaba could never completely forget those memories.

They both knew that her scars, both the physical ones and the emotional ones, would never completely heal.

But people help.

Support helps.

More than anything, love helps.

And that was exactly what Galinda planned to give her.


End file.
